Entertaining, but ruined by trailers

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2006)

You have a job. You go to school. You have fun. You have friends. You live in a good world. However, the only reason it's good is because they tell you that and you don't know what any other world looks like anyway so, for you, it's good. There is also "the lottery." Whoever wins, gets to go to... *drum roll* ...THE ISLAND! Now the Island isn't good, it's... Perfect. Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of this good society and through nightmares he suspects that The Island may not be as perfect as it is made out to be. When his good friend, Jordan Two-Delta is selected to go to The Island, he convinces her to run with him and escape, because "The Island" and Lincoln suspects is a hoax and people who "go there" are actually killed.
Now, that is a decent summary and makes for what would sound like an interesting science fiction film. Surprisingly, popcorn blockbuster director Michael Bay is at the helm of what seems like a film with an involving story. And for Bay it is, his best storyline since "The Rock." However, by reasons that are beyond me, and you for that matter, unless you were responsible for this film's marketing campaign, the trailer ruins everything. That's right. Everything. Any of the pretty interesting story turns are inanely ruined in the trailer. So that, in effect, starts to drag down what would be an interestingly plotted and entertaining summer action film to just an entertaining summer action film.
Not that that's bad and that is basically what you can expect from Michael Bay. The difference between this film and 2003s dreadfully bad "Bad Boys II" is that this film isn't as profanely vulgar and the characters actually have believable motives. The action scenes are also top-notch, most notably the "train wheel mayhem" scene, however, by the end, Bay starts to push the action to insanely destructive limits and also drags the story into a typical cheesy ending a la "Pearl Harbor." All ends well and there is hardly a surprise or thought raised about the admittedly interesting issues at hand.
But at least the entertainment value and action make it fun. 7/10
Rated PG-13: violence and intense action